


Seasons

by KΛKI (KakiRyu)



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 06:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakiRyu/pseuds/K%CE%9BKI





	Seasons

It is Autumn. 

 

Dying leaves slowly drift through the air, crinkling wisps of red, brown, and orange falling towards the earth. To the east, in a dense forest of dead trees, wilting and becoming dormant once again, a mountain sleeps. Along a silent stream where only fools fish, a small cave lies at the foot of the peak. Inside sleeps the she-wolf, her breasts each taken by a pup of her litter, red polished across her maw and the innards of some poor creature lacking either the speed or the fear to escape stuck between the symbol of death’s rotting fangs. 

 

Between all the small lumps of cold flesh and fur, one of her pups whines, still clawing anxiously to suck at her mother’s teat. All her brothers and all her sisters barely moved, washed over by a sleep too deep for a mere newborn to take. The wolf did not grimace. For she too, would soon drift into the realm of the Great Ones, her body slowly becoming one with earth, just as she had come from it. But for now, she would stay. For the one pup that she knew she could keep, she would breathe and bleed and suckle as long as she could. Rot and death could not have her, not her child. Not yet. 

 

For you see, Autumn, while not the season of death, is the season when things always begin to end.

 

____________________________________________________________________

 

It is Winter.

 

Snow has painted the forest, a brilliant whiteness reflecting off the ground with such brightness that it scars the eyes. A constant flurry of crystalline rain whips the air as fiercely as the cold wind that carries it. Diamond stalactites hang from every branch, every trunk; no tree is without the cold embrace of season. All within this forest has died or is dead, only the things that manage to carry their own heat— the flame of life within their hearts, still breathe.

 

A tree stands silent within a clearing, once colorful and plentiful leaves now replaced by a weiss counterfeit. At its very top, hidden within the igloo of branches hides a nest, a crimson-eyed corvid sat inside. The crow, the only blotch of black and red that defies the white decree of snow and cold, sat vigilant and stone, a stiffness about it that came with the reality of an end. But what laid beneath it was not gone, not dead. A lone egg hid underneath the callous effigy of the crow, a faint glow from inside; it would not hatch for some time. But for now, under the tailfeather of its stone mother, waiting in the lone, warm darkness that escaped the cold embrace of white death outside, the hatchling would wait.

 

For you see, Winter, while the season of death, is the turning point of new beginnings. 

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

It is Spring.

 

The sky hangs gray, fearsome thunderheads looming over even the tallest trees, an infinite rain pouring from above. Earth and vegetation slowly paint the land, the death and ice of the old season replaced by the violent rebirth of the new. To the east, a mountain ascends through the clouds, vehement winds and ungodly rains no deterrent to the Tower of Heaven. Its peak only seen from Elysia, its base only known by beasts of the underworld. A cave sits atop the Earth, above the inferno yet below the heavens, where life and death join in equilibrium. Within the cave, a once terrifying wolf slumbers, bound to the eternal rest that will pull her soul to the stars and her body to the nether, the rank stench of death leaves the cave with the water that flooded into it; only corpses remain.

 

As rain drains from the den and back into the wood, atop a small piece of driftwood carried off by the tide a young hound struggles to hold herself above liquid sleep. The storm roars―perhaps in outrage, perhaps in amusement— showering the new wolf with a cruel and hard rain, a hellish welcome to the outside of its den. The rains begin to stupor and sputter, clouds finally mending their endless bleeding. As the fury of the sky drains into the earth once more, the pup finally collapses upon the solid ground. She coughs, and she chokes, and she struggles not to drown inside of her own lungs. The young wolf finally stands, defiant against death, a new tale now begun.

 

For you see, Spring, while the season of beginnings, is never when the journey takes place.

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

It is Summer.

 

Fire ravages the forest clearing, the sun and the storm that hid behind it the arsonists in question. Flames devour all in sight: the grass, the earth, the trees and even the sky itself, suffocating smoke consuming all the atmosphere. Earth scorched black and thin, the sun is master of this season, vaporizing all made of water, melting what is not, a never-ending drought upon the forest. Hell writes its name upon the earth, the Lord of Cinders grasping and clawing at all that draws breath.

 

In the center of the clearing, a tree holds steadfast amidst the flames, fire tearing the bark into ash. Atop this tree sits a lone crow, weak and frail from the malnourishment of the drought, yet desperate to avoid her own symbol. The crow pitters around her nest franticly, an ungodly cry unheard through the wall of blaze and smoke. As inferno tears away at its trunk, the tree begins to lurch and sway, its insides charred and devoured, its time to return to the earth nigh. The pine falls, its trunk as dark as the smoke rising from it, and the crow leaps, its eyes and feathers cloaked with the blackness and red of smoke and flame. She lands, quietly choking as she stumbles out of the wall of black and death, the devil still reaching for her lungs. A silent caw is heard by no one.

 

For you see, Summer, while the season where journeys begin, is only one step away from when they end.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

It is Autumn.

 

Shadowed by a mountain reaching for the heavens, a small forest clearing empty, no tree nor bird nor beast walking through its field. The remains of a valiant pine lay bare and dead in its center, no sign of life ever having been imbued within it. To the east, near the foot of the mountain sits a cave, void and dead, the grave of the beast that once dwelled inside known only by its skeletal cadaver. Nothing could have existed within this cave, nothing could have ever lived, the scattered bones of beasts large and small alike the final proof to nail the coffin. The forest is empty.  The forest is dead.

 

A path lay between cave and clearing, one side marched upon by bird, the other by beast. At either end of the path lay an animal, each resting upon their death bed. The crow starved of any flesh besides that of her own mother, no home save for the dirt, no wind to ride with her frail and broken wings. The wolf never able to properly breathe again, starved of meat and sustenance, her ribs as bare and obvious as the cave that lay before it.

 

The cycle is done, the song complete, no further need to drag on what is cursed to perish anyway.

 

But what of death, you say?

 

Well you see, Autumn, while not the season of death, is the season when things always begin to end.


End file.
